News

At Last, 65 CAPs

—Arie Church6/9/2014

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Remotely
piloted aircraft operators began flying the 65th around-the-clock combat air
patrol orbit, finally reaching the Defense Department's end-strength goal, on
May 28. "This is a culmination of an Air Force-wide effort to achieve
Secretary of Defense [Robert] Gates' initiative of 65 CAPs," said Col.
James Chittenden, vice commander of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, in a June
6 release.
The Air Force mounted a combined 33 CAPs requiring several MQ-1 or MQ-9
aircraft and roughly 180 airmen each before Gates launched the initiative in
2009, states the release. US forces in Afghanistan will draw down sharply next
year but "it should be clear that there’s no lessening in the
demand," Col. William Tart, RPA capabilities division chief at the
Pentagon, told Air Force Magazine earlier
this year. "It’s an insatiable demand and at the most we end up filling 66
percent" of combatant commander's requests across the globe, he said. (See
also ISR
After Afghanistan from the January 2013 issue of Air Force Magazine.)
​